


Cosmic Love

by unlockedlips



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Five is a good brother, Fluff, Klaus is sad, Kliego week, M/M, No Beta, Past Lives, Post-Canon, Relationship Problems, Soulmates, We Die Like Men, but not really, this is probably the sweetest thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 20:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18820339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unlockedlips/pseuds/unlockedlips
Summary: Relationships are hard.Klaus fidgets with the bracelets he keeps on his wrist as he watches Diego leave the living room, his shoulders curved in defeat. Another disagreement. Another fight. Another reason for Diego to leave him. Because he will. Klaus knows that with a certainty that comes directly from experience. One day Diego will wake and open his eyes to see Klaus in all his morning glory, smudged liner and wild hair, and will realize that he can’t do it anymore.Or the one where Klaus is paranoid that Diego will leave him, and Five has to talk some sense into him by revealing some shocking news.





	Cosmic Love

**Author's Note:**

> So I wasn't really intending on writing any fics for Kliego Week because I've been too stressed with work to sit down and plan anything. But on my lunch break at work earlier today, this idea popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone! So as soon as I got home, I sat down, started writing, and didn't stop for three hours.
> 
> title taken from a florence + the machine song by the same name
> 
> Please please please tell me what you think of this fic! Both Klaus and Five are such dynamic characters and I hope I captured their personalities. I never realized how much I needed more of the two of them being good brothers until I started writing this. 
> 
> also!!! you can follow me on tumblr at klausandco
> 
> okay thanks love you all, hope you enjoy it!

Relationships are hard.

Klaus fidgets with the bracelets he keeps on his wrist as he watches Diego leave the living room, his shoulders curved in defeat. Another disagreement. Another fight. Another reason for Diego to leave him. Because he will. Klaus knows that with a certainty that comes directly from experience. One day Diego will wake and open his eyes to see Klaus in all his morning glory, smudged liner and wild hair, and will realize that he can’t do it anymore. 

Klaus is a lot to handle. Meaning, of course, that he’s a burden, that no two hands could possibly think of carrying his baggage. Ex junkie, veteran, whore, each word is another added pound to an already heavy spirit. He’s watched without fail every one of his partners try to take on the challenge that is Number Four The Seance Hargreeves and then crash and burn shortly thereafter. And with the defeat comes the resentment. Loving words turn into harsh shouts aimed to bruise and cut and maim. His heart has been thickened by the scar tissue of wounds scabbed over and reopened with every lash of tongue, but despite all of his lessons in heartache, he still hasn’t learned that there is no one, not a single person out there, strong enough to handle all of his eccentricities.

It started three weeks ago when Diego snapped at him for drinking orange juice directly out of the carton, tilting his head back and drinking the last dregs before putting the emptied container back into the fridge. One small comment and Klaus’s hackles were raised. He was defensive, argumentative, shooting back his own snide comments about Diego cracking eggs directly into his mouth and leaving cracked shells on the kitchen counter. He didn’t even mean to say it, didn’t even really care that he’d thrown out nearly half of a dozen of eggshells in three days alone. None of it stemmed from a need to justify his actions. No, Klaus’s response was one made from fear because he knew this was only the beginning.

After that moment, it seemed impossible to go an entire day without Diego mentioning some small infraction Klaus made against him. Whether it be leaving hair in the sink, turning up the television too loud, or insisting it wasn’t too cold outside to walk barefooted to the store, everything he did seemed to get on Diego’s nerves. Paranoia crept into Klaus’s mind even as Diego curled into him in the bed they shared each night. It was a poisonous fog. It was a defense mechanism, born out of necessity when so many had previously spit in his face and told him he was too much. And so Klaus fed into it. He snapped back at Diego. He said hurtful words, lashed out like a wounded animal, too scared to know the difference between help and threat. 

So now here he is, watching Diego leave, wondering how many more fights it will take before Diego tells him that life before their relationship was easier. He doesn’t want to be tied down to something so fragile and broken. Diego doesn’t want to clean up the collective mess of years’ worth of abuse, whether at Klaus’s own hands or those of the people he trusted the most, and after everything he’s been through, Klaus can’t blame him for that.

Klaus is willing to let his line of thinking incapacitate him for the remainder of the evening when the air around him crackles, sending chills down his spine. He can feel the molecules in the air around him expand and contract, making room for something that isn’t there, which can only mean one thing…

Five.

Blue light fills the room and then his brother is standing next to him, not a single hair out of place on the perfectly combed back style he wears, so out of place on someone whose face is so young. 

“Do you really have to do that inside the house or do you just like to show off? Because listen, color me impressed and all, but one day your whole popping into existence thing is going to give me a heart attack.”

Five barely registers him as he strides over to the bookshelves, taking steps far too wide to mimic the lazy gait of a teenager. It’s moments like these where Klaus is struck with the knowledge of how old his brother truly is, and his heart aches for the loss of youth.

“It saves time,” Five quips as he pulls a heavy volume down and brushes the thick layer of dust off of the front cover. “And time is a precious commodity I am not willing to waste. Not that you’d understand.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means any man who spends three hours in the bathtub listening to the entirety of Abba’s discography is not someone who values the ticking of a clock.” 

Five spares him a glance then, and Klaus has to fight the urge not to fidget under his appraising gaze. He’s used to people looking at him and casting judgment based on the surface of his skin, but when Five looks at him, at any of them, it’s always calculated, like he’s trying to diagnose each one of their maladies. His brother gives him a precursory purse of the lips before he reluctantly puts the book down.

“Why does it look like someone stole the candy right from your mouth?” he asks and crosses his gangly arms across his narrow chest.

“If I told you Ben suddenly materialized and did just that, would you leave me alone?” Five doesn’t say anything, but Klaus sees the tell-tale twitch of his eyebrow, a sure sign that his hard won patience is already wearing thin.

“Diego and I got in a fight,” he explains in a rush, looking down at his painted toes which curl in the plush oriental rug under him. “Over something stupid. God, so stupid, but I… It’s been happening a lot lately. The fighting. And I don’t know. I keep thinking…”

“That he’s going to leave you? That’s ridiculous. In fact, that might be the most ridiculous statement you’ve ever made,” Five interrupts, and where someone else’s voice might have been soft and warm, his holds the same cold, clarity as a professor reading from a scientific journal. He leaves no room for arguing and yet Klaus straightens his shoulders to do just that.

“Oh yes, so ridiculous. Ha ha! Glad my relationship problems are such a joke to you. Are you forgetting the part where every single one of my past relationships ended up in flames, both real and metaphorical? Wait, I didn’t tell you that time I accidentally set my ex’s loft on fire after he broke up with me did I? Funny story, see I was packing my bags and I noticed this giant, I mean totally humongous spider on his desk right next to a bottle of lighter fluid--”

“One day, I swear you’ll get tired of the sound of your own voice, but as it seems like that isn’t today, I’m going to interrupt you to say that you’re being ridiculous and in the process, you’re sabotaging the only good thing you’ve ever had.”

Klaus’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click that has his jaw aching (honestly it’s never been right since he had it wired shut) and he stares at Five with wide eyes. The audacity! How dare his brother comment on his love life when the only relationship he’s ever known was with a mannequin who reeked of eau de plastic? 

Five heaves a heavy sigh, like he knows exactly what Klaus is thinking which only makes him fume that much more. His fear is valid, he knows it is, because he sees the tired way Diego looks at him sometimes, like he’s finally beginning to feel the way his spine bends under the pressure of Klaus’s adoration. 

“Sit down, Klaus. I have a story to tell you. One I hope might give you some peace if you’d only stop listening to this,” he points to his head, “and start listening to this,” he gestures to his heart.

“That’s some terribly sage advice for someone who needs a stepladder to get the peanut butter from the cupboard,” Klaus snickers. Five rolls his eyes. The tension in the room dissipates as quickly as it arrived, and he flops his languid body onto the oversized couch.

“You know, I give pretty decent relationship advice. Delores and I had plenty of arguments as we traipsed through the wasteland that was the future.”

“About what? Let me guess, she caught you staring at another mannequin, didn’t she? I bet she was one of the models with the perky gumdrop nipples. You dirty dog, you.”

“You are insufferable.”  
“And yet you still love me.”

Five looks at Klaus, again with his piercing eyes, and chews at his bottom lip as if mulling over his next words carefully. He perches on the edge of the forest green armchair, elbows to knees, looking every bit the old man he is at heart. 

“Reincarnation. I always thought it was a load of shit. The concept of souls being reborn, living out different lives to cultivate an array of morals until they reached enlightenment and suddenly became one with the cosmos. How outlandish, right? But then one day I took a job from The Handler. A real bitch of a case that had me travelling back to late nineteenth century England. I did what I had to do, washed my hands of the blood I spilled, and got a drink. I was three drinks in and talking this pretty little thing into coming back to my room later that night when I heard this laugh. Most obnoxious noise I’d ever heard, but it was familiar. I hadn’t heard that laugh in nearly forty years.”

Klaus, for all of his earlier complaining, has focused his entire attention on his brother as he speaks. His words paint a vivid picture of a tired old man, gun in his pocket, briefcase at his side, looking out of place and totally at home at the same time. Klaus can picture it easily when his brother talks like this, imagines that he’s one of the patrons at this English bar watching the scene unfold.

“So I turned around and back in the corner looking as alive and well as I’d ever seen him was... you. My brother, back from the dead, except you weren’t dead yet. You shouldn’t have even been alive yet.”

“Wait, what do you mean it was me? That’s not possible” Klaus chokes.

“A year ago you thought time travel wasn’t possible either. Now pay attention. I don’t like interruptions.” 

“Sorry, Sir.”

“Don’t call me that, but apology accepted. Anyway, so there you are, laughing like some idiot in love so I stand up to get a better look and lo and behold! Diego’s sitting across from you. Of course I went up to you both, tried to talk to you because I was convinced all of my family was dead, but you had no idea who I was, and before I could work things out, my time was up, and the Commission needed me back for another case. In between jobs, I started doing some research, started asking the higher ups if it was possible that someone from my lifetime could be displaced in another timeline. They told me that it could never happen, not unless they had a power like my own or the technology the company had, but… and here’s where things get interesting. They said in some rare cases certain souls could be reborn in different eras.”

Five pauses, waiting for Klaus to say something and interrupt him once more, but he’s stunned into silence. Seemingly pleased with Klaus’s response, he continues on with his story.

“Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is born with a soulmate. We aren’t missing half of ourselves in some person we’re meant to fall in love with halfway across the world. No, soulmates are something else entirely. They’re created when two souls become so intricately entwined that the lines between them begin to blur. And it’s this amalgamation that shows up repeatedly throughout history. I didn’t believe it at first. My brothers were destined to be together? Preposterous. So I set out to prove I was right. Started to steal briefcases and travel back in time to random periods and in all of them, every single one of them, there was you and there was Diego. Always in love. Always happy no matter the circumstance. All the way back to ancient Greece.”

Soulmates. The idea of it is too large for Klaus to wrap his confused mind around. He wants to tell Five he’s full of shit, call him out on some elaborate joke that only he thinks is funny, and yet the truth of his words ring inside of Klaus like a church bell rings to the angels. He can feel it in his chest, in his heart, right where Five told him he should be listening to. Diego, in every lifetime, in every century, had found Klaus, had loved him, cherished him. Klaus feels like he might burst with the knowledge of a love so profound.

“So you see, Klaus, Diego isn’t going to leave you because you forgot to wash your socks again or any other sort of innocuous mistake you might make. And even if he did, fate would play her role and bring you back together again.”

“Oh.” And that’s all he says. A quiet little sound that’s been punched out of him with the force of his emotions. He feels his eyes begin to water, hot and salty tears that spring from the overwhelming truth of it all. Diego’s not going to leave him, hasn’t left his side for more than a thousand years, and nothing, nothing has ever made him feel undeniably whole and perfect.

“If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself. What do I know, right?” Five smirks in that bratty little way of his. He might be an old man at heart, but he still carries the arrogant confidence of a teenager like a carefully selected accessory and he pulls it off well.

“Uh… Klaus? Everything okay?” Diego’s voice comes from the doorway and Klaus clambers over the back of the couch, nearly falling on his ass to close the distance between them in such a rush that one might think they had been separated for a lifetime and not a mere hour.

“Klaus, baby, hey, what’s wrong? I got you. Shit, is this because of earlier?” 

His throat is too tight to speak so he grabs onto Diego, falls into his chest and breathes him in, the scent of home and something lighter, sweeter. One arm goes around Klaus and brings him in closer before gentle, chapped lips press against his temple. 

“Fuck, listen, I… I’m sorry. About earlier. About… the past few weeks. I’ve been a, well, I’ve been a dick. Okay, a huge dick to you. Guess I forgot what it was like living with someone else. You know. Gotta adjust. Anyway, I…” 

Klaus pulls away to look at Diego with red-rimmed eyes, and he spots the dusty rose stain of a blush on his cheeks, a sure sign that he’s embarrassed, or nervous, or a sickly mixture of both.

“I got you these,” Diego brandishes the arm he’s been hiding behind his back this whole time to reveal a bouquet of daisies that smile brightly at Klaus with their pretty white petals. “It’s stupid, I don’t know, I just thought maybe they’d make you happy. They, uh, they reminded me of you.”

And that’s the last straw. The levee breaks and Klaus begins to cry, big, blubbering tears that make him gulp for air. Five was right, goddamn him, but he was right. This whole time Klaus was so concerned that Diego was going to leave him that he couldn’t see how fiercely Diego was trying to love him.

“Shit, Klaus, easy, hey, breathe. I’ll take them back to the store. I can get you something else. Do you like roses? They had roses. Or.. or fuck, I don’t know but you need to stop crying before you make yourself sick.”

“I-it’s not that,” Klaus sniffles and hiccups, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Then what’s wrong I don’t understand?”

Klaus doesn’t think he has the mental capacity to explain the intricacies of everything Five just told him, nor does he think he can articulate the earth-shattering joy he’s emanating. So instead of trying, he grabs Diego’s face and kisses him breathless, kisses him while holding onto the knowledge that they’ve done this millions of times before and will do it a million more, in this life and the next.

Klaus pulls away, grinning, all teeth and playful cattiness, to ask, “Hey… do you think I’d look hot in a toga?”


End file.
